CCI Stock Forecast & Price Target

Crown Castle, which owns and leases approximately 40,000 cell towers and over 90,000 route miles of fiber in major U.S. cities, is expected to achieve an organic growth rate of 4.5% in 2025, driven by increased lease and amendment applications as carriers expand their 5G networks. The company's fiber site rental revenue in Q4 reached $527 million, surpassing both estimates and consensus, while tower organic growth for the full year also aligned with management's expectations at 4.5%. With a projected range of $3.885 billion to $3.915 billion in organic billings, Crown Castle demonstrates a stable growth trajectory in its core tower operations, which should be bolstered further following the anticipated divestiture of its fiber business.

Crown Castle's tower segment reported site rental revenue of $1.07 billion, reflecting a slight year-over-year decline of 0.8%, with metrics for EBITDA and AFFO per share coming in below consensus expectations. The company's plans to divest its fiber business for $8.5 billion, perceived as dilute to valuations given the lower-than-expected multiple received, could negatively affect long-term growth prospects as it becomes primarily a tower operator reliant on a concentrated customer base, 75% of which comes from the Big Three US mobile carriers. Additional risks, including rising interest rates, macroeconomic weakness, and the ongoing consolidation among carriers, could further impede Crown Castle's operational performance and limit revenue growth moving forward.